


Comme Il Faut

by mashaghost



Category: Neko no Ongaeshi | The Cat Returns
Genre: Gen, Past Fic, if you squint there's also Feelings, there is noodle soup involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28402599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mashaghost/pseuds/mashaghost
Summary: He missed out on a lot of cardinal priming for his eventual position. Now unofficially under his advisor’s discreet tutelage, the new Cat King can’t quite say he’s sorry to have never been forced to learn the finicky etiquette surrounding a proper meal… but a bowl of homemade soup for his trouble isn’t that bad a motivator.





	Comme Il Faut

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on tumblr, which I chose on my own without being prompted bc. Well, I do that a lot.  
> Filled with headcanons and some references to a much longer fic in progress detailing this particular part of their relationship coughs Sorry for that. I figured this being the First Fic I upload here will let everyone know What I'm About, and that is useless shop talk  
> Should also mention that no matter what I do, the Cat King in these past fics I write almost always sounds So Young, and I can not figure out why, so know that he's only supposed to be about three years younger than Natori here

“Your paw is in your lap again.”

The look this pointed but nonchalant observation earns him is affronted, exasperated, as the younger cat sets his unoccupied paw back on to the flimsy table before them.

“I don’t know why all this baloney matters, Natty. Is anyone really gonna give a crap if both paws aren’t on the table at all times..?”

“Well, they may come to the unfortunate conclusion that you’re feeling perhaps a bit _feisty_ , but I suppose if that doesn’t bother you, then…”

Natori doesn’t have to look up from his work to know the new king most likely wears an indignant, scandalized look; he hears him shift in his seat anyway, leaning back, crossing his arms grumpily. When he speaks, it’s with a very characteristic sullen mumble.

“Don’t be _crude_.”

It’s here that Natori finally turns his attention from the portable stovetop to his companion, and it’s with a contrite smile, at least, which seems to appease Claudius somewhat.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I shall behave.”

Claudius scoffs. “All you _do_ is behave. Someday, I’m going to order you to live a little, and you’re gonna just keel over because I finally found the one thing you can’t do.”

“There’s worse ways to die, I suppose.”

“Not _many_.”

Then, silence, as Natori doesn’t respond in favor of adjusting the flame and fanning his (for once uncovered) paw over the foaming pot. Just a few moments of this is all it seems to take for Claudius’ minuscule store of patience to run dry. He flops onto the table before him with a dramatic groan, muffled only slightly by the surface his face is now smushed against.

“This is _so_ **boring** — _!_ If I’d had to do this as a kid, I woulda kicked my tutor in the shin.”

Upon the deadpan knowing look he gets from Natori, the king amends himself, “...Okay, I would have kicked _more_ tutors in the shins. Whatever, isn’t there something you can do to make this less excruciating _?!_ ”

“Isn’t that what the soup is for?” Natori asks mildly.

“Oh, yeah. How’s that coming, anyway? Smells pretty good.” 

“It won’t be long.”

In the silence that follows, Natori waits for another plaintive outburst from Claudius, but to his surprise, it never comes. Claudius instead seems to find absorption in his own thoughts, and it’s not long at all before he makes them known.

“Where’d you learn this stuff, anyway?”

“The cooking or the boring etiquette?”

“The _cooking_ , duh.”

Natori hesitates, stirring the noodles briefly; he unintentionally gives the impression that he’s reluctant to reveal the truth, which only intrigues Claudius more. “...My grandmother taught me.”

"Did she teach you how to sew, too?"

"Yes," Natori answers patiently. In the fleeting time Claudius hasn't been paying attention, his advisor has already filled two bowls with noodles and is now ladling relatively clear, tawny broth over the top of them. Distantly, he feels his stomach growl in anticipation.

"Would you like some doubanjiang?"

"Some wha..?"

Wordlessly, Natori hands the jar to Claudius, who wastes no time at all in scrutinizing the paste or giving it a cautionary sniff.

“This stuff spicy?”

“It is spicy.”

Claudius hands it back. “I’ll take a rain check on it, then.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Gimme some extra beef, though.”

Natori complies, but once more without a word, and the reserve irks Claudius just slightly. He knows he isn’t, but it _feels_ somewhat like he’s being ignored. He clicks his chopsticks together, and whether it’s out of impatience or peevishness, Natori’s chiding response is the same regardless— a mild, “Misusing one’s eating utensils is generally not recognized as acceptable behavior, sire,” as he places one of the bowls before the king.

Claudius grins at his advisor as if he’s come out the victor of some covert competition, but Natori can not for the life of him puzzle out what that competition might be. He might even wager the king himself doesn’t really know.

Then, seeing Claudius preparing to pick up his bowl and most likely gulp it down, he hastily adds, “A proper meal is one that’s savored.”

Claudius pauses mid-lift and shortly after deflates in frustration, plopping his bowl back down again. “Yeah, yeah, alright. We’ll do it the _respectable_ way.”

Spoken while stabbing at a piece of beef with one of his chopsticks querulously. Natori resists the urge to put his head in one of his paws, making the mental note to address that another time. 

“...you know, when I’ve been king long enough, I’m getting rid of all this stuffy rubbish.”

“The elders will decry the new regime as vulgar extravagance,” Natori remarks with a tickled laugh.

“They’ll get used to it.” Then, after finally taking a bite of his soup now that his momentary petulance has worn off, “Hey— your soup is actually _good_.”

“You sound surprised— not necessarily the most polite of ways to issue a compliment, I might add.”

“That’s not how I meant it,” Claudius grumbles. “I just… I mean…”

What he meant is consigned to remain a mystery, as he never does pick his trailing thought back up, descending instead into apparent morose rumination. Natori doesn’t rush him, unsure himself over what to say.

It had been not two weeks ago the two could hardly stand to be in the same room together without taking veiled potshots at each other, if not outright quarreling, at least when not accompanied by King Aelius or other companions. Reaching an understanding and two very genuine apologies did not make for an instant camaraderie on their own.

“...Thank you,” Natori does eventually settle on, his eyes still averted. “I-It’s not anything special, but I suppose it does remind me of home.”

Claudius looks up from his soup, and the stormy brow he’d been sporting softens some. He, too, then averts his gaze.

“Sounds nice.”

“I’m sorry,” Natori says, and though it feels like the proper response, he can’t explicitly trace what reasoning has led him to it.

Meanwhile, Claudius only shrugs, popping the last piece of cubed beef from his bowl into his mouth and propping his head against one of his paws (the other is, once more, folded in his lap below the table). “It is what it is.”

Continuing on, in a way Natori would have previously read as defiant or vindictive, he offhandedly stabs his chopsticks into the few remaining noodles and leaves them there, and the look he spies on Natori’s face when he turns his attention to his advisor tells him he’s probably committed a number of faux pas. 

With a sardonic snort, he says, “Guess I got a long way to go, huh?”

Natori, while rather gently and methodically removing the chopsticks and laying them beside the king’s bowl, offers a more optimistic (if shy) angle. “You’ll get there.”

“With this soup, I will.”

Ah. One truth revealed, it seems. Natori meets Claudius’ wide smirk with a faintly playful look of his own, head canted just slightly in knowing amusement, and the tacit agreement seems to be all the king needs to add yet another inscrutable victory to his ongoing arcane list. Motivation and indulgence are often inexorably wed, after all.


End file.
